


Clever Fox

by StripedScribe



Series: Febuwhump2021 [18]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Arguing, Blindness, FebuWhump2021, Gen, Whump, maze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29533833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripedScribe/pseuds/StripedScribe
Summary: A supervillain's lair, full of secret traps and weapons. Sneaking through, Team Red's powers combined to find them a safe path.Until they hit a trap, a strange powder falling on them, blinding them.Leaving it up to Matt to get them out again.FebuWhump Day 18 [I can't see]
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Peter Parker & Wade Wilson
Series: Febuwhump2021 [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2136723
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	Clever Fox

**Author's Note:**

> AN: I am really not sure what happened to my versions of these characters. They are all angry, and out of character, and have clearly been through a whole load of hell before getting to this point. Matt is very angry, the others are not thinking, there’s some ableist language at the end which is not how I see the characters. We could put it down to whatever the powder was that affected their thoughts as well.

Of course, the evil villains lair was on an island. They’d had to hire a boat, after catching a cab all this way, following Matt’s senses. A hellhound on the track of a villain, who called herself Doctor Fox, prizing herself on the games and weapons she’d created. Even as they arrived he thought they might be rushing into it all, that they might be in over their head.

Even more so when on the island, they found it full of traps.

Weapons swinging at them, nothing that seemed instantly dangerous, more a game. Something that kept pinging Peter’s senses, a twitch keeping them safe, as they skirted around pressure points on the floor, ducking under wires.

It was a maze, he struggled to keep their direction straight, the walls looming and changing around them, the shift of machines in the walls. Not feeling like they were getting any closer, feeling as though they were going round in circles, something new to escape from around every corner. He wasn’t ready for this. He was supposed to be in Hell’s Kitchen, that was his zone, under his protection. Not being dragged out here to some sort of villain, supervillain’s lair. Traps he’d only ever heard of in films, Foggy’s narration as a character ducked under blades, narrowly avoided dying, being squashed in moving walls.

They laughed, as the next stretch showed a plank across water, some sort of fish swimming around below. Matt had a feeling it wasn’t goldfish, instead the snap of piranhas. But they made it over, expecting to see cameras, that they were being used for [Fox’s entertainment. If they were there, he couldn’t sense them amongst everything else on the walls, the buzzing electric and click of machines.

It could all be a wild goose chase, a false lead. He couldn’t hear anyone else near besides them, no heartbeats, no human movements. But they had suspected Fox wasn’t quite human, too overpowered, too unnatural in her movements.

Too messed up, to have lured them here, to this. A definite trap, a game by now, and he tried to turn them back, to persuade the others to give up. They were enjoying it though, dodging and ducking and weaving, and he was oh so aware again of the fact they would heal. That for Wade definitely, there was no real risk here, he wouldn’t come to any harm, even if they ended up carrying his body out and just waiting for him to wake up. And Peter, he had his sense, a flicker for danger, superhuman senses beyond and different to Matt’s, that would actually keep him alive.

Right now, he just felt like a blind man, stumbling along behind them, shouting out for pressure points, for blades before they dropped from the ceiling. For that patch of floor that would fall if they stood on it, how a timer in the wall counted down between the spikes in the wall.

A glorified search dog, he was getting too old for this. Maybe Foggy was right, maybe it was time to hang up the horns. If this is what the world was coming to, a cage they’d walked into, overseen by the latest front page villain. This was so far beyond what he’d signed up to do. Goddamned superheroes dragging him out of Hell’s Kitchen.

This was Peter’s mission, really, and he couldn’t remember what they were looking for anymore. Weapons, alien tech, and if it would be anywhere it would surely be here, a tiny island in the middle of New York’s rivers. Well, not tiny, big enough for this trapped hell.

He was sure they’d been down this corridor already. The same weapons dropping from the ceiling, perhaps she had become bored, repeated things. Or he’d managed to get them turned around on themselves. He couldn’t tell how long they’d been wandering for, aimlessly, never seeming to get any closer to an end, a centre.

“Stop.” He froze, the others copying, paused movements. “Something clicked in the floor.” A pressure plate, under one of their feet. A trap he’d been too slow to catch, and he tried to find what it would activate, listening for weapons in the walls, the turning of mechanisms, the smell of gunpowder or metal.

It was something indescribable, a smell in the ceiling. Someone shifted, and the surface gave way, dropping a powder onto them, leaving them coughing and spluttering. It was so fine, like icing sugar, coating their skin and suits. “I don’t know what this is.”

“I can’t see.” Peter’s voice squeaked in fear, and another time he would have laughed, but he could only look on with concern, not wanting to shift from his spot. Just in case something else happened with the next pressure point clicked. “I can’t see.”

His heart dropped as Wade echoed the same, “I can’t either Webs. What was that?!”

Fuck. “Okay, luckily I can still see, okay, stay where you are.” Fucking idiots, he should have left this team a long time ago. This didn’t happen when he was solo, the worst he had to deal with was guns, a sword if he was lucky. Not some sort of powder blinding people.

He slowly edged forward, listening to the floor for any other movement, hoping that was the only trap for this section. Soon having his hand on Wade’s shoulder, moving to hold his hands, walking them backwards to the clear area. “Steady, I’ve got you, just keep walking. There’s traps everywhere still remember, just trust me.”

This was going to take forever. “Stay there Wade, I’m going to get Peter.” Who was still stood frozen, hands crossed against his chest. “Okay, give me your hands.”

“I’m stuck.” Gloved hands held in his own, he could tell Peter tried to move, but his feet were stuck too the floor. “Give me a minute.”

“We really don’t have a minute.” He knew stressing him out would never help, but the words slipped out regardless, frustration and fear, needing to get them all out of this mousetrap. “That’s it, gently does it, you can move now. I’ve got you, we’re going to get out of here.” Three hearts beating in fear, in nerves, a stark difference from the minutes before, when they were running around, treating it all as a game. This didn’t seem an injury easily shaken off, perhaps not even an injury, not even something their powers could fix for them.

Something for Claire to look at, if he could get them out of here in one piece.

Back through this maze. Oh god help him.

It was slow, painfully slow, moving one of them at a time. Wade so much less confident, Peter’s spidey sense making him a little braver with the sudden loss of a sense. Step by slow step he moved them around pressure plates, ducking trip wires, a hand over their heads to keep them low. Guiding, guiding, guiding. Helping them to crawl along the floor, the safest way for the blades he knew would start to swing above their heads in a second. Wishing he was stronger, then he could just carry them, get them out of here quicker.

Oh god. The boat.

A problem for when they got outside. For now, they had the piranha pit to get across, and that was going to be horrendous.

“Sticky feet Peter, sticky feet. That’s it, slowly does it.” A narrow plank, him walking backwards, watching Peter’s hesitant steps, making sure his feet stayed on the beam. The snap and splash of the fish before, hungry for food. Peter had just swung across it before, but without his sight he didn’t trust himself to be able to, to hit the safe spots in the ceiling.

Slow progress, leaving him stood next to the wall on the other side, and returning to Wade. His humour hiding anxiety and nerves, “Don’t feed me to the fishes Matt. They sound hungry.”

“You’re not going in with the fishes. Just follow me, slowly. Left a bit - your left.” A shuffle, getting him on the beam, the open air around them, walls too far away to steady against. Step after step, heel to toe, Wade got across. One brief wobble in the middle, his arms clamped to Matt’s, he didn’t fall. That was the worst one, the mazes to follow easy in comparison.

Fresh air, out in the open, and it was no surprise they all sank to the floor.

“Does it hurt?” A question to Peter, knowing Wade wouldn’t be able to feel it. He didn’t sound to be in pain, just scared, but they were all good, too good, at hiding pain.

“No, it’s weird. I don’t know what it could be, to lose our sight like this. It’s nothing I’ve ever seen before, something strange. Another of Fox’s experiments, some sort of chemical mix, to blind people.”

“We can’t let her get away with this. We need to go back in, destroy her and her creations at the source.”

“She blinded you! She blinded you, what do you expect to happen if we go back in? We can’t, until you’re healed, or recovered, and I don’t even think we should! This is the point we ask for help, that you buddy up to Stark finally and get the Avengers on it, someone else! We should have never come here, you both got hurt, got injured, and it’s pure luck I don’t need to see to get us out of here!” They were scared enough, he shouldn’t be shouting at them. But he was done, the world was getting more than people them could cope with. This was out of his area, out of his control.

But he dreaded to think of what would have happened if he wasn’t there. If they would have just had to stop, unable to get back without their sight, been captured by Fox, forced into whatever she was doing here.

“I know Matt. Can you, I don’t know where-” Oh. He remembered those days. That was the problem here.

Memories. Of being a kid, stumbling into a room in search of his father.

He stood up, moving closer to them. Pulling on Wade’s leg to get him to shuffle closer, a hand on each of their arms.

“We’re going to get home, just trust me.” He could deal with his place on the team later. Deal with whatever had happened today later, when they were all safe, calmer, at home.

He just had to get them on the boat. And get them back across the river, back home. To safety. It was inelegant, pulling them into the boat, hands feeling around, getting them sat in seats with belts on. Trying to start the thing, to remember which way home was across the expanse of nothingness, water splashing and bouncing around his mental map.

To move as slow as the boat would go, hoping for the shape of buildings to clear in his radar, something to aim towards. To act calm, so that the others wouldn’t worry, remember to stress that Matt shouldn’t really be driving here. But at the moment he could see the best out of all of them, and they’d never get the help from Claire they needed stuck on an island. Not to mention that Fox would have surely realised what had happened by now. That they’d escaped, if it was even a trap, or just Fox’s defences. If she was even there, if what she was hiding was even real.

Not their problem. Time to refer it to the big names, they’d done enough already, this was beyond them.

Once they got to shore in one piece. Somewhere that way. How did you park a boat?

Luckily, or unluckily, Wade made him stop the boat, floating in the middle of space, with a shout. “It’s coming back Matty, I can see your beautiful ass again!” They’d both fallen silent before, and Matt could imagine why, the seasickness was bad enough for him, without the level of the horizon to keep steady on. Easier to be quiet and take deep breaths and try to will the nausea away.

“Great, you can drive. Peter, anything for you yet?” Wade healed quicker, they knew that, it was logical his sight would come back quicker, leaving Peter still sitting there blinded. They swapped spaces, Matt sitting back down, thankful to let Wade try and park up this stupid boat.

“Not yet. Should be soon though right?” His hands were twisting together, over and over again, head bowed down. “It’s got to come back. I can’t-”

The abandoned words were like ice to Matt. A deep rooted life of ableism, of people pitying him because he was blind. He reasoned with himself ‘It’s new, it’s scary, it’s only temporary for them.’

It took hours for it to come back. Getting back to shore, Wade called a cab and they took Peter home, staying with him until it wore off, or he healed through it. Ignoring whatever feelings he had as they talked about how awful it was, not being able to see.

“You’re different though Matt, you’re not really blind though, are you? You don’t deal with this, you couldn’t.”

He left. Out the window, out home, to find Foggy. Red clouding his thoughts. Wade could look after Peter, he was done, if this was how they truly felt about him.

**Author's Note:**

> :I These are not nice members of Team Red


End file.
